The Women of Paradise County: Book 2
Publication Date: June 17, 2025
Violet Sellers is blue, and for good reason. She’s repressing a shocking secret she won’t tell anyone, especially her comfortably middle-class parents. When she makes a new friend in school, Jules Marks, who lives on the “other side of the tracks” with his five little sisters, she is introduced to a dark world of self-abuse. As Violet learns about Jules and his shifty mother, Lee, she retreats further into her shell. Her parents, Gloria and Skip, are horrified and do their best to find out what happened to their adolescent daughter while bending over backward to keep the whole town from knowing their business. Jules has an aunt and uncle who know his desperate story, and they finally get a chance to free him and his sisters from a loveless world of poverty. Meanwhile, a spinster named Margaret Burns watches and waits. She knows all about redemption and she’s got a master plan up her sleeve. Margaret and most of the quirky characters in Violet is Blue eventually learn to dance between the worlds of the “haves” and the “have nots” in ways none of them ever anticipated.
Welcome to Book 2 in The Women of Paradise County Series.
The small town of Poulson represents a community where everyone knows everybody else’s business, thanks to a reliable party line. However, these areas aren’t typically very welcoming to newcomers.
Author Anne Shaw Heinrich kicks off The Women of Paradise County in God Bless the Child. The second installment, Violet is Blue, centers on a teenage girl haunted by an awful event.
Easily read as a standalone, the story unfolds through a multi-narrator perspective. This approach works well in delivering the needed context. What sets this story apart is the author’s captivating writing style.
Not only does she juggle multiple characters, but she handles weighty topics tactfully as relationships fray. While Violet’s parents are trying to put the pieces together, Violet reaches out to a friend who would never be welcomed by her family.
As the catalyst of Violet’s turmoil unfolds in shocking detail, relationships falter. Can the family find peace in Paradise County?
Violet Is Blue highlights a young girl trying to cry out for help the only way she knows how.
Since she first fell in love with writing in high school, Anne Shaw Heinrich has been a journalist, columnist, blogger and communications professional. Her first article appeared in Rockford Magazine in 1987. She’s interviewed and written features on Beverly Sills, Judy Collins, Gene Siskel, and Debbie Reynolds. Anne’s writing has been featured in The New York Times bestseller The Right Words at the Right Time, Volume 2: Your Turn (Atria) and Chicken Soup for the Soul’s The Cancer Book: 101 Stories of Courage, Support and Love. Her debut novel, God Bless the Child, is the first in a three-book series. She and her husband are parents to three adult children. Anne is passionate about her family, mental health advocacy and the intrepid power of storytelling.
